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I can't remember the last time I watched TV by choice. I just stopped doing it, particularly the news. There came a time when I decided there is really nothing I can do about a collapsed building in Kenya, or an earthquake in Vietnam. Yet, I got fed the news almost instantly as it happened. I went through all the stresses and emotional trauma, then simply forgot about the incident. The forgetfulness is to make room for the next bit of bad news - the mass beheading of innocent people in some rogue state somewhere, say.
The saying "No news is good news" says it all really.
For some reason though, I can't seem to avoid these two LCD screens on the wall of this waiting room. Every time I pass by them, they are displaying some kind of bad news - missing airplanes, terrorist attacks, tsunamis, something.
Today as I grabbed my early morning coffee, there they were, serving up the bad news. I couldn't hear the audio, but my heart sank when I saw the images of the most …

I recently discovered this vlogger guy Casey Neistat. He's a web-celeb, or what is now usually referred to as a social media 'influencer', thanks to his over 3 million subscribers on YouTube. Every day he adds more subscribers than my entire YouTube channel. To celebrate this landmark, he opened the kimono and revealed the secrete to his success. There are three words, said Neistat; "Just Keep Uploading"
Ah! Persistence. Long suffering, immutable persistence in the face of apparent failure. So this is another piece of the greatness puzzle that I have found.
This bird appears to understand the principle well. I watched it try for over half an hour on the same spot, dipping its head into the water in an attempt to catch some fish ( for dinner I assume). It must have failed over 20 times before finally emerging with a wiggler in its beak. Success, it seems, is the endpoint of multiple failures that is only reached by sustained persistence.